Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2018)

IEEE Conference Record # 42656; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3452-3

EAACK - Enhanced Adaptive Acknowledgment

Dr.Sanju V.1,Gagana Venu2, Reenu Sara Joseph3, Mariya Stephen4, Melvin

Mathew5.

1 Assoicate Professor, Dept. Of CSE, MITS, Cochin

2,3,4,5 VII Sem Students, Dept. Of CSE, MITS, Cochin

Abstract - Wireless networks are currently having the ability to move in all directions and can
dominating over wired networks in many forward packets dynamically. The proper
applications .Mobility and scalability are some of communication in MANET happens by nodes
the features that has led to make wireless networks cooperating with each other. The nodes are added
more popular. Out of the many wireless network
Mobile Ad-Hoc network (MANET) are the most and removed dynamically and this makes the
popular. They have a highly dynamic and random MANET having a dynamic network topology. The
topology. Essentially the ad hoc network is a communication among nodes within the MANET
collection of nodes communicating with each other can be done directly.
by forming a multi-hop network. MANET is used in
many military applications because of its self MANET is independent of centralized infrastructure
configuring nature. However Mobile Ad-Hoc and is used when there is no specific predefined
Network (MANET) has much vulnerability towards infrastructure. In MANET each node can be a
security attacks due to its features of open medium,
transmitter or receiver or can act as a router
limited physical security, dynamic changing
topology, lack of centralized monitoring and forwarding packet and thus provides the network to
organization point. work in a decentralized manner.

Index Terms – AACK, Watchdog scheme, The decentralized and dynamic nature of MANET
TWOACK, ACK, SACK, MRA makes this more exposed to malicious attack. The
presence of any kind of malicious nodes can affect
NOMENCLATURE the MANET and can lead to severe packet dropping
in transmission. Such defamatory nodes pretend to
The different abbreviations used in the paper are: be cooperative but will drop the packets instead of
ACK - acknowledgment forwarding it to the next hop. This will in turn affect
the performance of the network and hence proper
SACK - Secure acknowledgment detection of such defamatory nodes is necessary.

MRA - Misbehaviour Report Authentication 2.0 BACKGROUND

AACK - Adaptive acknowledgment Identifying the malicious nodes in a given network is

important as such nodes can cause problems by
TWOACK - two acknowledgments mishandling the packets on intention. Such nodes in a
network are to be identified and should be isolated. The
RSA – Rivest -Shamir- Adleman misbehaving nodes may cause packet drop in the
AES – Advanced Encryption Standard network. There are various techniques available for
identifying the misbehaving nodes. This includes-
1.0 INTRODUCTION Watchdog mechanism, TWOACK mechanism and
AACK mechanism. In this section we try to describe
The self organizing and self configuring nature of
these approaches.
wireless ad hoc network have made it more popular
and is widely used in all areas of live application. 2.1 Watchdog scheme
The Mobile ad hoc network is the commonly used
wireless ad hoc network of mobile devices each Watchdog scheme is a well-known node misbehaviour
detection in ad-hoc network. It mainly consists of two

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2018)
IEEE Conference Record # 42656; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3452-3

parts – Watchdog and Pathrater. Here each node acts as acknowledgment then the link is considered to be
a Watchdog node and continuously listens to its next misbehaving. TWOACK scheme can solve receiver
hop transmission[1]. If it understands that the next problem which is present with Watchdog scheme. But
node fails to forward the packet within a predefined it adds an additional overhead with the packets being
time limit it increments its failure counter. Once the sent such that it needs to provide acknowledgment to
failure counter reaches a particular limit the Watchdog nodes which are two hops away. MANET heavily
node will report it as misbehaving. Then it incorporates depends upon battery life of nodes and hence such
Pathrater which directs the routing protocols to avoid additional overheads can cause significant problems in
the reported nodes in the further transmissions. the life span of the network.

Fig 2.1 Watchdog Mechanism

Pathrater picks reliable route based on the knowledge Fig 2.2 TWOACK Mechanism
about the misbehaving nodes. Each node uses this
information and creates path metric by calculating In TWOACK approach node Z needs to send an
average of node ratings created by each node about its acknowledgment to node X in case of successful
neighbour. Source node S can transfer packets to D if reception of data packet. Hence after every triplet of
there is a direct connection between them. If such a nodes, an acknowledgment is generated which denotes
path is absent it can make use of intermediate nodes the successful transmission of the data packet.
like X, Y and Z to send the packet. Here the dashed
2.3 AACK
lines shows that X is within transmission range of Y
and can overhear transmission of Y. Solid lines AACK stands for Adaptive Acknowledgment. AACK
represent the direct connections existing between was proposed as a system which incorporates the
nodes. S transfers packet to X and X forwards it to Y. X functionalities of both TWOACK and the normal end-
can overhear the transmission done by Y and can verify to-end acknowledgment passing scheme. The
if the packet is forwarded successfully. advantage of AACK is that it significantly decreases
network overhead for the packets being sent while
But Watchdog fails to detect misbehaving nodes in case
compared to TWOACK scheme. But both AACK and
of
TWOACK schemes cannot detect the malicious nodes
1. Ambiguous collision – Prevents X from in the network if any false misbehavior report or forged
overhearing if some other node is sending packets acknowledgment is created. If the sender has different
to X. destinations it will choose among two approaches –
2. Receiver collision – X cannot check if Z received AACK and TACK(similar to TWOACK). It will use a
packet forwarded by Y. switching system to select between this nodes. The
3. False misbehavior – Nodes can falsely produce default mode is AACK. On sending the data packet the
reports about nodes. sender will inform the intermediate nodes about the
4. Packet dropping – Nodes may drop packets. flow mode and acknowledgments will be sent
accordingly. In AACK mode the destination node sends
2.2 TWOACK only one acknowledgment to the sender node instead of
sending acknowledgments for every three consecutive
In this technique the packets send by a node are nodes. But here the long paths can cause delay and
expected to be received by those nodes which are two hence it may cause packet loss.
hops away from it. Thus it can detect the misbehaving
links by acknowledging every packets send over a set
of three consecutive nodes. A node is required to give
the acknowledgment to the node which is located two
hops away from it. If a node is not getting an

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2018)
IEEE Conference Record # 42656; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3452-3

successful transmission, the ACK sent will be

specifying the number of packets received at the
destination. Otherwise ACK will not be specifying any
packet count.

4.0 SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

The proposed system is having two sides:

Fig 2.3 AACK Mechanism

Here D is the destination node and when the data

packet reaches D it has to send acknowledgment back
to S. This acknowledgment passes through each of the
intermediate nodes X,Y and Z until it reaches the
sender node S.Hence each intermediate node is aware
about the data reception.

3.0 PROBLEM DEFINITION

EAACK solves the problem of receiver collision,

Fig 4.0 Dataflow Diagram
limited power transmission and false misbehaviour of
nodes [2]existing in other packet drop detection system SERVER SIDE
like Watchdog, TWOACK, AACK etc. The proposed
system overcomes this problem by defining three Admin of the system works on the server side. The
schemes admin will initially configure the nodes and routes at
the server side. The MRA analysis for any packet
ACK: dropping and misbehaviour report is done at the server
side. In case of detecting any malicious node the node
In this scheme the destination node will send an can be removed from the system by reconfiguring the
acknowledgment towards the sender on receiving node. Accordingly corresponding unsafe path is be
removed.
complete packet and hence it is an end to end
acknowledgment scheme. CLIENT SIDE

.SACK (Secure ACK): The client can be either a sender, a receiver or can be
any intermediate node. The sender transfer the file
If the receiver feels any data or packet loss in received through an optimal path an in case of any drop will find
data , the receiver send back an SACK. The SACK an alternate path. The receiver on receiving the entire
allows only the source node to be aware of the number packet send back corresponding acknowledgment.
of packets received properly at destination. These 5.0 MODULE DESCRIPTION
details will not be visible to intermediate nodes and
hence the acknowledgment is secured. As stated earlier there are different modules or
subsections on implementing EAACK. This
MRA (Misbehaviour Report Authentication): primarily includes two sides - Client side and Server
The MRA in the proposed system will find out the side. The admin of the EAACK network is on the
packet dropping at each node if there is any and server side and can do the tasks like configuration of
identifies the misbehaving node. In case of any nodes ad routes, conducting MRA analysis and so
misbehaviour report the same packets are sent through on. The client side where the users can actually send
an alternate route. and receive files as packets can be active only if
EAACK server is active. If the admin chooses to
There can be certain false misbehaving nodes within stop the server then the clients side can sent no more
the network. Some of the intermediate nodes will be data.
sending an ACK to the source node but the packets
need not be reached at the destination. For every

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2018)
IEEE Conference Record # 42656; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3452-3

The modules of implementation of EAACK can be

decomposed into different sub-parts.

Fig 5.0 EAACK Modules

Node configuration

Once the admin has login it can configure the nodes Fig 5.2 Route Configuration
which needs to communicate with each other in the
File operations
network. Each node can be registered in the network
by using a node id - which will be the name of the In this module there are some file operations like file
particular node. Each node is uniquely identified by selection, file splitting, file transfer etc. These are
using its IP number and port number. A single operations done on the sender side. There are two
system can have more than one nodes. So the phases before sending the file and these are:
presence of port number helps in identifying the
nodes in such cases. 3.1. RSA encryption/decryption

Both RSA and AES are encryption-decryption

algorithms. RSA ( Rivest –Shamir -Adleman)
algorithm is a widely used algorithm and it is
asymmetric. It produces two keys - public key and
private key. Public key sill be available for everyone. It
is used to encrypt the file while private key is available
only to the destination where in which only the receiver
can decrypt the data and no intermediate nodes can do
the same.

Fig 5.1 Node Configuration 3.2. AES encryption/decryption

Route configuration: AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) algorithm is a

symmetric algorithm which produces a single key for
If the nodes are configured by the admin then the next both encryption and decryption. It is a block cipher and
process is to define the paths that exists between them. the size of block is varying. A block cipher is an
There can be a number of paths that can be there algorithm which works on a block of data with a fixed
between every nodes. The only condition is that every length of bits with an unchanging transformation that is
node which is configured in the network should have at
defined by a symmetric key. It may use the same key
least one path which connects itself with other nodes.
The routes are configured by giving the id of the for encrypting plain text and decryption of cipher text
destination node and source node along with an or it can make use of a simple transformation to go
arbitrary distance that is defined for the particular path. between the two keys.
It is by considering these distances the path can be
selected - the shortest path can be selected by the On splitting the file it is divided into packets and the
sender. size of the packet is defined by considering a count.
Thus a file can be split into a number of packets and
this packets are being forwarded. Each of these packets
are encrypted for the purpose of security. The packets
also include a sequence number by which they are

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 Proceedings of the Second International Conference on Computing Methodologies and Communication (ICCMC 2018)
IEEE Conference Record # 42656; IEEE Xplore ISBN:978-1-5386-3452-3

identified at the receiver and hence we can ensure

packets are received in the correct order.

On receiving the packets the receiver is supposed to

send acknowledgment. If the receiver finds any
problem within the packets send then can send SACK.
SACK is encrypted for security. If SACK is sent then
there is no way by which the intermediate nodes can
know how many packets is received by the receiver.
Only the sender can know the number of packets
received by the receiver. Hence sender can identify if
any packet drop occurred in the path. Then it can
choose to send the data via another path. Once it
Fig 5.4 Traffic log
identifies packet drop it can inform admin about the
drop and admin, by viewing the MRA analysis can MRA:
identify the node which caused the drop and can
choose to delete the node from the network. Hence data MRA (Misbehavior Report Authentication) is a feature
can be sent with more reliability. of EAACK. It is used to detect misbehaving nodes in
presence of false misbehavior report. The main idea of
MRA is to identify whether the destination node has
received the packets properly. False misbehavior
reports are generated when an intermediate node
decides not to transfer the packets any further and
sends an ACK to sender. In such cases the MRA
analysis shows the number of packets received by each
node and hence we can identify that particular node
which has not forwarded the packets as the number of
packets received by further nodes in the route will be
zero. So the node can choose an alternate path by
which the packets are to be sent.

Fig 5.3 File Operations

Traffic log:

Here the traffic of the network can be viewed and

decisions about nodes can be taken. It can monitor the
status of the transmitted file. It can be viewed by the
admin. It is shown by the MRA analysis. It shows data
like the node id , name of the node , number of packets
it received till then and number of packets the
particular node has dropped. If the behavior of some
nodes are found to be faulty the admin can reconfigure Fig 5.5 MRA
the nodes and routes in the network. It also records the
transmitted date and time for future references. 6.0 GENERAL STRUCTURE

The proposed work includes three user interface

sections and these are admin, sender and receiver.
Admin can login into the system by giving his user
name and password which is already stored in the
database. Only if the details given by the person is

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valid he can enter into the system. Once admin enters

system he/she can perform a number of tasks and can
give the command to run the EAACK server after
which the nodes can actually sent and receive data.

Fig 6.1 General Structure of Sender

The receiver can be either an intermediate node which

Fig 6.0 General Structure forward the packet towards next hop or it can be the
final destination itself. On the receiver side certain
On the sender side operations like selection of node to operations can be done on the packets received. A
which the data is to be sent and selection of path malicious intermediate node can cause packet drop.
through which the packets are to be sent can be done. Otherwise each intermediate node transfers the packets
Additionally it can do file operations like selection of to next hop. Once it reaches the final destination the
file to be sent, splitting of file into packets and transfer packets can be merged and will be stored in the File
of packets from source node to the next node in the store of the particular node. If the merged file is
path selected. The sender side receives the complete and correct the receiver in turns sends ACK
acknowledgment given by the receiver and towards the sender. The receiver can send SACK if the
corresponding messages will be shown in the console receiver feels any data or packet loss. In SACK only
of sender. If SACK is received the sender side receives the source node will be aware of number of packets
dialog box which shows the number of packets received at destination. These details will not be visible
received by the destination node. In that case the to intermediate nodes and hence the acknowledgment
sender can choose an alternate path by which the is secured. It is done using a signature made by random
packets can be re-routed to the destination. If ACK is code generator.
received then sender can understand that the data has
successfully reached the client.

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packets into the file only if it is the specified

destination.

8.0 ISSUES RESOLVED

The proposed system solves many problems of

previous systems like TWOACK, AACK and
Watchdog.

1. It solves the receiver collision problem as each

node in the path receives the acknowledgment
dialog box sent by the receiver. Hence each
intermediate node can know that the packet it
transferred has been properly forwarded and
received by the receiver node. If the node
receives an SACK then it can know that the
packets received by the destination have some
problem.

2. It solves the ambiguous collision problem as a

Fig 6.2 General Structure of Receiver node is capable of forwarding even though it
receives packet from another route.
7.0 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION
3. It solves the limited transmission problem as
The design involves the server system and the clients. each node does not need to waste its valuable
The admin can log on to the server system by entering
battery power for overhearing the
his username and the password. The server system on
validating the username and password enables the transmission of next node as in Watchdog and
admin to configure the nodes and the routes in the TWOACK. It transfers the packets and
network. The node configuration involves adding a acknowledgments on reception and hence
new node by giving its name, IP address and the port saves a lot of power and reduces network
number and also deletion of an existing node from the overhead.
network or making any change in its IP or port number.
The route configuration involves defining a new route 4. It can detect packet dropping as MRA analysis
by specifying the distance between nodes and also shows the count of packets received and
deletion of an existing path. The admin initially do the
configuration and start the EAACK server. Once the dropped by each node and hence it can
server has been started the clients can start their identify if the network has faced any packet
operations. drops and can also identify the node which
caused the particular problem in the
The client can login by specifying his node name. transmission.
Client can either send a message or receive the
message. The sender is having an option to select the 5. It can identify the false misbehaviour nodes as
destination node. On selecting a destination to send the
the acknowledgment sent by an intermediate
data the available paths can be displayed by selecting
the generate path option. The file to be sent is then node without forwarding it to destination will
chosen by browsing the folders. The file is split into be different from the one produced in case of
packets and sends to the destination through the proper transmission. Hence the sender can
selected path. The receiver can either transfer the identify the misbehaviour that occurred in the
packet into next hop or merge the packets in its network and admin can identify the node
destination node. The receiver is having an option to which caused the problem by studying the
drop any of the packets it has received. This is to
MRA analysis.
manually depict the presence of a malicious node. Also
the receiver can send ACK if packets are successfully
6. In cases of file transfer using Bluetooth or Wi-Fi
received or it can send a SACK to its immediate
successor. The merge operation will merge all the alone we cannot identify packet drop or loss.

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But here by using the same means we can

ensure a more secure data transfer.

9.0 RESULT

Fig 9.3 Node Configuration screen

Figure 9.3 indicates Node Configuration where the

admin can add new nodes by specifying the node name
Fig 9.1 Admin login screen corresponding IP address of the node and the port
number.
Figure 9.1 shows the admin login screen where the
admin enters the Username and Password.

Fig 9.4 MRA Analysis screen

Figure 9.4 indicates the MRA Analysis which gives a

detailed report regarding the packets sent and the
packets dropped thereby helping to identify the
corrupted node.
Fig 9.2 Admin home screen

Figure 9.2 indicates the admin home screen. Config is

used to configure the node, route, view the MRA
Analysis or to Exit.

Fig 9.5 Server not found screen

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Figure 9.5 Server not found pops out when the client helps in finding out the packet drops and the false
tries to login before the server starts. misbehavior of nodes. Apart from detecting the
malicious nodes this project helps at avoiding certain
problems with the previous implemented systems
which includes:

1. Ambiguous collision

2. Receiver collision

3. False misbehavior

4. Packet dropping

5. Limited power transmission

In case of any misbehavior between the intermediate

nodes EAACK helps in finding out an alternate path to
route the packets.

But since MANET heavily relies upon the battery

Fig 9.6 Sender side screen power of nodes that can be a problem in this solution
Figure 9.6 indicates the sender side screen of the client. also but it is partially solved. Also the network
Here the sender can select a path from a list of congestion can cause packet drop or delay in reception
generated path to reach the destination, browse the of packets at nodes which can be solved by using a
required file, split into packets and transfer to the next powerful means of network. The system can be made
hop. more user friendly if the acknowledgments are
produced automatically without a user prompt and we
are trying to implement the same.

REFERENCES

[1] Deboral C, Sudhagar G.-An Elliptic Curve

Cryptography Based Enhanced Adaptive
Acknowledgment (ECC-EAACK) Intrusion
Detection System , International Journal of
Computer Science and Mobile Computing, Vol.3
Issue.2, February- 2014

[2] A. Janani, A. Sivasubramanian - Survey of Packet

Dropping Attack in Manet , Indian Journal of
Computer Science and Engineering (IJCSE)

[3] Tao Shu, Marwan Krunz - Privacy-Preserving

Fig. 9.7 Receiver side screen and Truthful Detection of Packet Dropping Attacks
in Wireless Ad Hoc Networks
Figure 9.7 indicates the receiver side screen of the
client where the node can drop any selected packet, [4] Rakesh Shrestha, Kyong-Heon Han, Dong-You
transfer the packets as such to the next hop, send an Choi Seung-Jo Han - A Novel Cross Layer Intrusion
acknowledgment or merge the packets to obtain the file Detection System in MANET
sent.
[5] Poonam Joshi, Pooja Nande, Ashwini Pawar
10.0 CONCLUSION AND FUTURE SCOPE Pooja Shinde, Rupali Umbare - EAACK- A Secure
Intrusion Detection and Prevention System for
This proposed work aims at the implementation of MANETs
EAACK.EAACK makes MANETs more secure as it

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